<p>"Xiggi: Which guidebook were you quoting?"</p>
<p>None.</p>
<p>Do you have any direct personal experience with the school?</p>
<p>I think you also need to check out the environment. Yale is a real urban, I repeat, urban university. You are smack dab in the middle of New Haven, which is sorta nice around Yale, but gritty elsewhere. Shops, restaurants, and the like are all within easy walking distance and the campus, although nice, is closed in and not generally grassy and tree lined.</p>
<p>Princeton is very, very suburban. The campus is beautiful, wide open, tree-filled, and grassy with lots of nifty looking buildings. The surrounding town is, for the most part, very high rent and full of high end retailers and retailers catering to the college kids. The immediate surrounding area is suburban/rural. Lots of wide open spaces and a growing number of McMansion kinds of developements. </p>
<p>Can't say anything about Duke. Never been there.</p>
<p>xiggi - jeez man, sorry I used the wrong word accidentally, no need to be so cold</p>
<p>anyways, unless you are a former/current student, or visited Duke, I don't think you should be judging the student body</p>
<p>Princeton all the way baby!</p>
<p>How about Brown? How is it compared to those schools?</p>
<p>Duke
Yale
Princeton</p>
<p>Personally, Princeton seems so elitist and boring; the first thing that comes to my mind is quite studying and boredom. For Duke, I think of mellow, cool, sports-driven, and not psycho-genius. That's just me.</p>
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anyways, unless you are a former/current student, or visited Duke, I don't think you should be judging the student body
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<p>how else are we supposed to figure out where to go to school?...</p>
<p>kcirsch:</p>
<p>I think what the poster was suggesting is that you should not limit your research regarding any school on an "opinion" from someone who may really know nothing about that school. Many people on this board pass judgement on institutions with no direct experience or knowledge. Many tend to perpetuate stereotypes that they may have read on CC, or from outdated guidebooks or articles or statistics.</p>
<p>Do your own research, visit the school, and talk to actual students! Do not base your opinions on unsubstantiated comments, particularly from students who may attend other schools. Make sure you listen to credible sources. The number of posts on cc does not necessarily make a student or parent poster a credible source! These posters may certainly be opinionated sources, but not necessarily accurate ones.</p>
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Duke is full of ambivalent people.
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<p>OOPS!! I'll have to tell my son to be ambivalent! Wouldn't want him to stand out or stand UP for something! ;)</p>
<p>and, BTW, no mansion here for any retreats.....<em>sigh</em> ~berurah</p>
<p>Uh yeah, no mansion or country club for this Dukie or most of her friends here either.</p>
<p>Since I do not turn my back to discussions, I will respond. </p>
<p>First, it is quite cavalier to immediately question the "qualifications" f a poster who happens to have an opinion about the school. In this regard, let me get personal. So, thoughtprocess, I should refrain to post an opinion unless I am student or alumni -or have visited a school. Well, well, does that stop you from peppering the board with opinions about schools? Have you visited every school for which you had an opinion? I do not think so!</p>
<p>Sokkermom, It is not hard to find interesting tidbits in your post. Do you consider anyone who happens to have a different opinion to be ... opiniated. Does the fact of attending another school voids every comment or makes the opinions unsubstantiated? And no, it is the number of posts that make a source credible, but the overall nature of the posts may shed some lights. </p>
<p>Now, back to the post that seemed to infuriate a few of yours. I stand by everything I said, starting with the ambivalence between political thoughts and actions, and this is based on personal experience. Contrary to your beliefs, I am very familiar with the school. Without getting in unneeded details, let me simply say that I know many alumni, recruiters, current students, and school officials from Duke. While I understand that you take umbrage on a personal level at my comments regarding the socio-economic distribution of the school, can you truly deny that my comments are entirely off-the-wall? </p>
<p>From my vantage point, Duke and its students really, really want to advance diversity and multiculturalism. Yet, they know so little about it that the performance leaves much to be desired, despite its massive and oft-overbearing liberal minded faculty and student body. </p>
<p>In a different post from thoughprocess, I read that the proportion of white versus non-white is 50-50. That is not the way to calculate it. Duke is as diverse as Wellesley is when it comes to URM numbers. So, how many hispanics, blacks, and native indians attend Duke? Here is the answer: it is less than 20%. </p>
<p>Further, do you REALLY think that Duke has been particularly successful at INTEGRATING into the dominant groups as opposed to merely recognizing and featuring the racial minority subgroups ? In this regard, you could ask yourself where most of the black students reside on campus. Or has that changed in the last 24 months? </p>
<p>Finally, when it comes to the nickname, maybe you ought to find out where it came from. Since my opinion is unsubstantiated, I won't give you the hint to check with the "colored" employees and faculty. </p>
<p>None of this discussion makes Duke a lesser institution. Duke is a wonderful school. but a lot of its stature and position at the pinnacle of education comes from its past. While Duke is no longer the school it was decades ago, the degree by which it has changed is subject to different opinions. </p>
<p>If it makes you feel better to discredit the messenger rather than discussing the facts, that is fine by me. I have no beef with Duke. I posted in this thread because I disagreed with one comment regarding the comparison with the other schools. You'd be very, very hard pressed to find a single negative comment of mine regarding Duke anywhere on CC, and especially in the Duke forum. I just hope that you'll recognize that biased views do not come solely from outsiders.</p>
<p>Oh no, I wasn't challenging your views or your qualifications...its just in your original post you gave no facts so I was just wondering where you got such a blanket impression of Duke students from. I don't mind that much, I was just worried you were an ex-student who had a grudge or something, but I take it you never went there. I mean, I won't argue that there are lots of WASPy kids here, but not EVERYONE is ambivalent...I took offense to that because there's lots of student activism there, thats all.</p>
<p>kcirch - I meant that a potential future student shouldn't take an opinion of someone who may not know much about how a school is as fact, though its good to hear a number of perspectives. Duke's definetely more conservative/amibivalent then its northern counterparts, but not to such a great extent as it was made to sound.</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>I think I read that you are a student at Claremont Mckenna, even though most of your posts are in the Parents forum. I am still amazed that if you are a student, that you have so much time to spend on CC. Maybe my son should transfer there. :) Even though he may be ambivalent, I don't think he has the time nor inclination to spend on a college admissions chat room. My excuse is the next sibling.....</p>
<p>Here's an interesting tidbit: If you do go to Claremont Mckenna, I checked the minority stats there. According to the web site, only 15.5% of the students there are in the categories you mentioned. The 2009 class profile for Duke is actually 15.6%.</p>
<p>This really doesn't have much at all to do with the original poster's question, and I apologize in advance!</p>
<p>If you are a student at a small school in California, I was surprised at your statement: " let me simply say that I know many alumni, recruiters, current students, and school officials from Duke". I have to be honest with you, I'm pretty sure that my son doesn't know a single person who is affiliated with your school. I'm also pretty sure that he knows nothing at all about the school and would never give an opinion on it even if he knew somebody who knew somebody who went there!</p>
<p>I'm not defending any of the schools, because even as a parent, I do not have first hand knowledge! To go back to the original poster's question, I think that Yale , Duke and Princeton are all wonderful schools. I also think they all have pros and they all have some cons. It's all about choice. None is better or worse than the other.</p>
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I am still amazed that if you are a student, that you have so much time to spend on CC. Maybe my son should transfer there. Even though he may be ambivalent, I don't think he has the time nor inclination to spend on a college admissions chat room.
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<p>Er, I don't think your son would have to transfer...I'm a freshman at Duke with a 4.0 who spends plenty of time online. So if you meant that as a cheap shot, be it towards Xiggi or Claremont-McKenna, it doesn't quite work.</p>
<p>sorry bpj. It was not a cheap shot, nor meant to offend anyone or any school....</p>
<p>Congrats on your academic accomplishments!</p>
<p>1sokkermom, I fail to understand the discussion about the difficulty to reconcile my activity on CC and the fact that I am student. FWIW, I have several very good reasons to participate in these forums, one of them is having a sibling. Regarding my "contributions" to distinct forums, I follow the subjects that present interest to me at that time. As far as most of my CC posts being in the Parents' forum ... despite that I do not feel the need to justify this in any way or shape, allow me to say that is simply incorrect. </p>
<p>On the issue of reconciling "whom I know at Duke" and the fact that I attend school in California, I'd like to mention tha my life did not start at the same time as my freshman year at CMC. FYI, Duke may have been the very first college I heard about at home and also the name adorning more than one of my tee-shirts. That is why I mentioned the word alumni! When it comes to recruiters and officials, I'd encourage you to use common sense or some imagination. </p>
<p>Lastly, I did not bring up the diversity numbers to make a comparison between CMC and Duke. As it happens, the demographics and political affinities present at CMC do mimic the United States' more closely than most schools. If that is a positive or a negative, it is up to personal opinions. :)</p>
<p>sokkermom - Thanks. :) I've seen your posts around before so I knew you probably didn't mean it as a cheap shot; I just wanted to point out that drawing conclusions about a school based on how much time people have to spend online is a bit sketchy, to say the least. :p</p>
<p>Ok Xiggi - Truce!</p>
<p>But, I have to admit that now my imagination is really challenged. I guess you could be the offspring of disgruntled alumni parent(s), YOU could be a disgruntled alumni, you could have applied and been rejected, you could have not passed muster with coach K, you could hate the color blue, you could be a closet tarheel, you could be JJ's second cousin, etc, etc.</p>
<p>You know where I stand. I have a child that goes to Duke. Is it the perfect school? Absolutely not. Does he dislike certain aspects of the school? Absolutely. Does he like certain aspects of the school? Absolutely. Is it a good choice for him? So far............</p>
<p>Sokkermom, I am happy to declare a truce, but there was no real battle. As I said, I have no intention to demonize Duke or find more issues. I have formed my own opinion about certain aspects of the school, but as you said no school is perfect. The fact that thousands of students think it IS the best place for them speaks volumes about the appeal of the school. My friends who currently attend Duke do think it is a real life version of Shangri-La. </p>
<p>Oh, please do not get too worked up regarding the connections. My parents are not disgruntled alumns, and I am not a disgruntled reject. I love the color blue and like the Blue Devils. I do, however, also like the Tar Heels and the other shade of blue. The connection is simple: several of my parents' best friends are diehard Duke alumni who seem to devote their life to further the Blue Devils' cause. They are relentless boosters, interviewers, or whatever role the school lets them play locally. I never resented their efforts to convert me! :)</p>